David Dimbleby may be allowed to present Question Time until he is 77, but Anna Ford says it's different for women at the BBC

Anna Ford describes David Dimbleby, 72, and John Simpson, 66, as 'charming dinosaurs'

The BBC has offered David Dimbleby a lucrative five-year deal which would see him presenting Question Time until he is 77Photo: PA

By Tim Walker

5:22AM GMT 07 Feb 2011

After leaving the BBC five years ago because she couldn't face being relegated to the "graveyard shift" on its rolling news channel, Anna Ford has been startled by the news that the corporation has offered David Dimbleby a lucrative five-year deal which would see him presenting Question Time until he is 77.

"I wonder how these charming dinosaurs such as Mr Dimbleby and John Simpson continue to procure contracts with the BBC, when, however hard I look, I fail to see any woman of the same age, the same intelligence and the same rather baggy looks," says the 67-year-old former Six O'Clock News presenter. She says she speaks out with reluctance – "a woman who draws attention to such things tends to be demonised as 'aggressive' or 'strident'," she says – but, even so, she wonders if somone at the BBC could explain.

The deal which Dimbleby, 72, has been offered includes provision for him to host 30 editions of Question Time a year at £15,000 a time. He has, meanwhile, turned down an invitation to defect to Sky, which is, I fancy, just as well. With Lord Bragg, 71,

already in residence at the broadcaster, it could start to resemble a care home.

Neil Nunes, the Radio 4 continuity announcer whose voice has topped a poll in The Oldie as the most annoying on radio, can take heart. He has a strong fan-base among Mandrake readers.

Toni Gidding emails me to say: "His wonderful voice always brightens up my day." Annie Bright says that she was "amazed" by the poll. "I love to hear Mr Nunes's rich, fruity, headmasterly voice, and his diction is very clear. As for his Jamaican accent, I find it just as reassuring as a soft-spoken Geordie accent."